we went to the beach

Yesterday morning Mike Perry called and invited us to join them at the Perry family beach house at Road's End for a night. We thought that sounded like lots of fun so we threw some stuff in the car and headed West. Although it was too cold and stormy to go down on the beach, we still had fun looking at the big waves and being away from home with some fun friends.
That's a classic Phillip Perry look if I've ever seen one........... There were some seriously steep stairs that went up to a lookout room on the top of the house. Of course, this was the boys' favorite place in the whole house. Once they learned how to navigate the stairs, it was good fun. Here's Nate on his way up.
The highlight of Sunday morning was feeding all of the seagulls. This picture shows just the one who is a regular to the deck, but shortly after this picture there were LOTS of birds. Do seagulls eat mandarin oranges?...well, yes they do.
We made a Goodwill stop with both families after we played at a park on Sunday morning. Each of the boys got a 'treasure'. Chris found this great 5' long green snake. He named him Pretzel...very cute. He fell asleep in the car on the way home and Pretzel kept him company.

Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve everyone came over to our house for dinner. The kids all got new Christmas p.j.'s from g'ma and g'pa. These cousins have A LOT of fun together!Busted! Catie was sneaking candies off of the gingerbread house. Yummy!
After dinner, all of the kids went downstairs and there was a beanbag for each of them from g'ma and g'pa. They were very excited! Of course, our bean bags are blue and orange. :)
Here's a picture taken after Santa had been to the house, and before everyone awoke in the a.m.

Aunt Susan and Uncle Greg got Land's End down vests for all of their nieces and nephews. They are awesome! Now the boys look just like me with my green one.
In the afternoon we all went over to Mark and Claudine's house for Christmas dinner and a gift exchange between the cousins. We had prime rib that was delicious!
The whole fam-damily in a group shot. Hard to believe that everybody has their eyes open and we're all actually looking at the camera. Not a bad looking group! :)

bowling fools

What else do you do with 6 kids who are all under the age of eight, one infant, and 6 slightly hungover adults on a rainy Sunday in Portland? Yes, you go bowling! We all met at Hollywood Bowl to fill up our Sunday morning with some activity. It was very fun. It may not be very funny to any of you, but Susan and I were laughing until we cried at how we bowl exactly the same. The picture above gives a bit of the feeling, but you'd have to see it in real time to see how synchronized it was.
Grubbin' on lots of greasy food at the bowling alley---popcorn, french fries and soft pretzels covered in "butter". The boys thought they had died and gone to heaven, since I usually just bring along cheese sticks and some crackers. The aunties are so much more fun than their mom!
Uncle Mark and Will. What handsome fellows!


Chris, Nate, Grace, Caroline, and Ella do their rendition of Happy Feet. Those bowling shoes sure were fun on the smooth, hardwood floors!

a night on the town

The unthinkable happened here last night.....all of the Slater siblings and their spouses went out on the town! We went to a restaurant in the Pearl called Sundari. Amazing Chinese cuisine! It was great to sit down and enjoy each other's company without children running around.
Greg, Kathy, Mark and Susan. Hey, we're even standing in our birth order! Can you tell who is the oldest? :)
Paparazzi shot! Susan and Greg get busted coming out of the restaurant. It's so hard to be so famous!
Cheers!

a funny one...

Tonight in the bathtub:
I noticed that my 'grown up' shampoo and conditoner had made it's way to the bathtub ledge from the counter. I asked the boys which one of them had put it there.
"Nate did," said Chris. "But mommy, it says bunnies can't not use it because it will get in their eyes and hurt them!"
Why would he think anything different with a picture like that? :)

A letter to Santa

This morning I found Chris writing a list to Santa. He saw it on the Mickey Mouse Christmas movie, so I guess he figured that he needed to have one for Santa, too. I asked him what asked for. In case you are having trouble with reading it, I will translate.
A bologna sandwich, snowman with skis, brown dog, black horse, new DVD player(?) and new pair of headphones.
Nate did not write a list to Santa. I think he's getting a little bit nervous that Santa won't be bringing him much of anything but some coal this year because he continues to have issues with stealing Chris' chocolate treats out of his advent calendar before Chris can get to it. The boy truly can't seem to help himself with this issue. Santa is watching!

Ho-Ho-Ho

Saturday morning we went to a holiday brunch at the Younkin household. There were lots of families there with little kids, and good ol' Santa made an appearance and handed out toys! Here is Nate greeting Santa as he came to the door. Thanks for the fun time Todd, Wendy, and Henry! Each boy got a nutcracker from Santa. How did he know how much they love those things?
Here's Todd and Chris being buddies at the party. Notice Chris' fancy leather belt? Right before the party Dan took one of his old, worn-out belts and cut a little bit (o.k., more than a little bit!) of leather off the end and poked a hole. Oila! a perfect size belt for a little man.

18 chocolates

Considering that it's only December 7th, does anything about this chocolate advent calendar look funny to you? Yes, that's right, the chocolates for days # 7-25 are GONE. Days 1-6 went great--the boys each opened one door in the morning, and that was it until the next day.
Last night after dinner the boys were downstairs while I cleaned up the dinner dishes. When I went down to join them, Nate came right over to me and gave me a hug and a kiss (a little bit suspicious behavior, should have been my first clue). At the time I thought he smelled kind of like coffee or something, but I didn't put much more thought into it than that. Then, I noticed Nate's advent (the boys both call them ALVENT calendars...very cute!) didn't look quite right. I started to lift up each little hinged door and surprise, surprise there wasn't a chocolate left to be found anywhere! Nate started squirming, and acting very silly----the way he gets when he knows he's done something wrong. He finally fessed up that he had eaten them all. "they were sooooo good!" he said as he rubbed on his full and tight little tummy like Buddah. 18 chocolates just sitting in there. Sometimes temptation just gets the best of us. :)
Here's a letter/envelope that Nate addressed to Santa. He sounded out the word Santa all by himself! He is planning to take it with him tomorrow when he will see Santa at Todd and Wendy's party. Inside he drew a beautiful trace of his hand, and colored all of the fingers different colors. Santa will surely love it!

gum

It's official---Chris and Nate now know how to chew gum without swallowing it! (yes, accidents do happen) I promised them each a piece of gum after their nap today, and they didn't let me forget it. Dan and I were laughing so hard on Sunday when they were working on this new skill. They stood there all stiff, hands in pockets, chewing without moving their heads, and learning to bite down on the gum when they needed to swallow the 'juices'. It was quite a sight.

The video of Nate is so cute. He was almost near tears about his mishap. I only wish that I had the camera rolling about 10 seconds sooner. We could have seen the big Juicy Fruit go down!

Tis' the Season!

Yesterday we decked the halls around here. About as far back as I can remember (well, actually about the past 12 years), the Chandler family has had their annual Christmas Tree gathering party on the first Saturday in December. It's truly one of our favorite family outings to go and ride Big John's flatbed tractor in the mud to find the perfect Christmas tree, see the same faces, visit the cows, eat some great food, then head home with a tree on top of the car....a great tradition. However this year it had be canceled because Cindi had her appendix taken out and she is in recovery mode. Not having the party this year really made us appreciate this event even more. It wasn't nearly as much fun to go and pick up a pre-cut tree. So, thanks Chandlers for all of the years of tree parties. It's just not the same without it!
Here's our tree...it actually looks really good---even better in real life! The boys had so much fun decorating with me, and quickly fell in love with all of the nutcrackers. It's hard to see in the picture, but the bottom 1/2 of the tree is loaded with ornaments and it's got some sag. That's what happens when you're only 3' tall and the lead decorator! It's going to be a fun month.